Gain Staging 101! I How To Gain Stage & Why Gain Staging Matters (SOMETIMES) | Make Pop Music

In this video, Austin dives into gain staging 101! We go over what gain staging is, how to gain stage your productions and mixes, and why gain staging may or may NOT be important to your sound and workflow.
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My Gear:
DAW: Cubase 12 Pro
Desk: AZ Studio Workstations
Main Microphone: Lewitt LCT1040
Monitors: Focal Shape 65s with Focal Sub6
Interface: UAD Apollo Twin USB
MIDI Keyboard: M-Audio Code 61
Keyboards: Roland Juno DS88, Roland Juno 106, Arturia PolyBrute
Guitars: Fender American Professional Stratocaster, Gibson Les Paul Studio, Taylor 214 CE Plus
Preamps: Heritage Audio HA81A & Audient ASP800
Microphones: Advanced Audio 251, Slate ML-1, Shure SM7B, JZ BH-1, JZ V67, Lauten Audio LA-320, Lauten Audio LA-220, Lauten Audio LA-120, AKG P170, Sterling ST59
Camera: Panasonic G7
Lens: Rokinon 12mm f2
Camera Lights: Neewer LED Light Panels
Timestamps:
Intro 0:00
What Is Gain Staging? 1:19
Gain Staging Analog Inputs Correctly 1:53
Why "Clipping" Doesn't Exist In Your DAW 3:35
When "Clipping" Does Exist In Your DAW 4:45
Why Saturation Happens In Plugins 5:35
Gain Staging With Compression 6:44
Using Clip Gain Automation 8:00
Using Input Gain Knobs 8:45
Why Gain Into Compression Matters 9:15
Clip Gain Automation To Smooth Out Compression 10:34
Gain Staging Throughout a Mix 11:45
When Gain Staging Matters 13:00
Level Matching For Gain Staging 15:45
Auto Gain With Plugins 16:45
Why Level Matching May Make or Break Your Mix 18:36
Final Thoughts On Gain Staging 20:14
Outro 21:45

[@Samzibumerey]

I am Samzi Bumerey from Nigeria. I am a Producer/Mixing and Mastering Engineer ..Thank you so much for your tutorials....you have totally change my mixing process for the best ...... I am grateful 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🥳

[@maeleigh5836]

This video was waaaay better than a lot of other gain staging videos. I've followed other videos through a process and have ended up doing a ton of work for little to no mix improvement. This helps me understand it and will allow me work through the impacts of making adjustments to tracks after I'm already in the mixing process. Thanks Austin!

[@FedoraRose]

Finally a Good video about this, I don’t know if you noticed but there is „fight“ about this on KZbin rn and everyone is saying something different

[@armandomushik9615]

Clearly the best video on gain staging. Thanks for covering the info that matters.

[@THENAMEISJJAX]

Never thought about Level Matching. Awesome video like always

[@mjk5254]

It must be gain staging season, I’ve been learning and relearning about it a lot recently. The level matching section was really profitable to me. Thanks Austin!

[@MixedbyBreeze]

U actually answer the questions that everyone else overlooks ❤ got my sub

[@enochsamten9112]

Thankyou so much! This channel means the world to me ♥️

[@Jcjenxnc]

I think a cool tutorial would be on how to make a song in the style of the early 2010's boy band songs. Easy examples being: NSYNC Backstreet Boys A modern example would be the fake boy band created by FINNEAS, 4 Town.

[@vitor_music]

Great video! Thanks for simplifying gain staging, i love how you demystify those concepts! Keep it up

[@ProdByXBeats]

thank you so much for making this video!

[@stevedemetrious6454]

Great video Austin 👍🏼

[@lukeiggy]

Great vid!

[@DESIREDTRUTH]

Awesome bro, just awesome 🙂

[@Nokrang_Lkr]

Thankyou sir Austin dives can't afford big classes and corses online but your style and approach have help me a lot.god bless...

[@reuvenmusic4578]

Thank you this tutorial. Lots of love from Nepal.

[@ReubenWalton]

Would love to see this using logic

[@soundweird]

thanks for all tutorial

[@misterbiggs2164]

This is what I been looking for a minute now all I need is a very descriptive 808 mixing video to get a loud but punchy and clear mix solid video!!!

[@mjk5254]

Look through this channel. He’s made one already!

[@misterbiggs2164]

@@mjk5254 oh yeah thanks hope it answers my questions like this one thanks for the response

[@Samzibumerey]

I will love to see you do a Mastering tutorial...that will be amazing

[@MakePopMusic]

You'll be happy to know that we have been collaborating with a top level mastering engineer for upcoming videos about mastering 😉

[@Samzibumerey]

I am super excited 😩😩😊😊😊😊😊

[@Nokrang_Lkr]

I can't wait any longer notification at super loud

[@forrestperkins]

I've mixed a lot of bad vocals and this is a good video for all artists recording themselves especially when it comes to the noise floor and clipping. I either get vocals heavily clipped in the chorus (and while Izotope Declipper is great, it can only do so much) or they are so quite that the noise is insane and i have to finesse it all day to try to balance it out and still the vocals will either be super muted and lack high end or have an annoying hiss throughout.

[@MakePopMusic]

Absolutelyyyy. If artists are tracking themselves, I always ask them to send me a 30 second test before they track an entire song and then need to re-do it because the multis are ass. Hahaha

[@JohnJeevasingham]

Great video, Austin! Where did you turn oversampling on in Cubase?

[@dominicisidore]

Hey, awesome instructional video! I have a question. I want to get the same desk, but I was wondering where I would place my mic. Can you send a link to your mic stand? I don't think it's attached to the desk right?

[@Harrysound]

I love that you use Cubase, makes a change from all the ableton videos

[@MakePopMusic]

Cubase til I dieeeeee

[@Harrysound]

@@MakePopMusic damn right! On my tomb stone it won’t have my age it’ll just have the current version of Cubase

[@jackc8120]

I am in a process of switching from ableton to cubase. It's very complex switch but also an amazing expierience.

[@Harrysound]

@@jackc8120 Cubase will serve you well, it’s the Swiss Army knife of DAWS

[@thiswillnotdo6027]

can you do a tutorial on how to do songs like alina baraz, sabrina claudio etc? kinda like ethereal rnb

[@simmermusic3894]

Good insights! Just wondering how you treat for example a vet instrument using Native Instruments Kontakt? Would you set the level within the actual plugin (output) or do you add a gain plugin on the channel?

[@Chaz_r]

Came for the gain staging , stayed for the compression 😂

[@_ConnorEdwardsMusic]

Do you recommend recording into a Limiter with no gain so you don’t clip?

[@ReubenWalton]

Is there a way to tell from Logic Pro X if the vocal take you just recorded was clipping at all on the way in on your interface? Or is your DAW always only showing you the level it’s playing at in your DAW? It’s not always easy to look at the level meter on my SSL 2+ at the same time that I’m singing.

[@happycry8112]

Great video as always, could you make a video in the style of Joji?

[@AndrewKZ0007]

Hi austin! Do you do mix reviews by any chance? I wanna get some input from you

[@kintubeats]

Link to song used in this vid?

[@joek2904]

Do u ever peak normalize your individual track audio to its peaking at the same levels before your start turn mixing?

[@DESIREDTRUTH]

Please teach us how to use fl studio app for beginners to make professional sounding music

[@MakePopMusic]

It's the same as Cubase, just different workflow.

[@heartshinemusic]

I think recording a LOUD and DISTORTED signal is way, way worse than an QUIET signal. We see that with the rise of (AI) noise reduction plug-ins, (Like RX and the new Waves one) many noise floor problems are now solvable. In the near future, we may even clean-up and mix tracks that were considered unusable for years.

[@cosignnetwork5784]

I’m really trynna understand something …how come your vocals are stereo and not mono? Didn’t you record them as mono?

[@MakePopMusic]

They were printed as a stereo track but they’re still up the middle (so mono). They were recorded mono from the artist and then bounced as a stereo multi track. It doesn’t really matter either way in Cubase. I assume they did it because lots of the vocals had panning and stereo fx printed on them.

[@jibonanondo7680]

watching your videos on .75x speed make it more enjoyable. Another super helpful video.

[@OSdahl]

finally.

[@OSdahl]

I always gain stage each track its good pro practise. Does it matter in the long run. Yes it will have a slightly better outcome. You are only producing the track one

[@OSdahl]

didnt you just put a limiter on?

[@ahimsabeatz8895]

🥨🥨🖤🖤💥💥💫💫